MIDDLE EAST:THIS WEEK history could repeat itself when 40 peace activists from 17 countries set sail from Cyprus in two vessels for the Gaza Strip.
Between 1945 and 1948, Britain stopped 66 boats carrying Jewish refugees to Palestine and interned thousands on Cyprus. Today it is Israel that has imposed a blockade, reducing 80 per cent of Gazans to penury and donor dependency. The boat people fear Israel could try to pre-empt the voyage. In 1988, three Palestinian officials were assassinated and a ferry was damaged by a limpet mine in Limassol port as it prepared to go to Haifa with 130 Palestinian deportees, international personalities and media.
The Israeli navy could detain the ships, Free Gazaand Liberty, when they enter Israel's exclusion zone off the Gaza coast with the aim of "breaking the siege".
The captains of both ships are Irish. Their names are not being released for security reasons. All are volunteers who are not only paying their travel expenses but also contributing to the common expenses of the voyage.
Journalist Lauren Booth, former British prime minister Tony Blair's sister-in-law, says the voyage shows "there are people out there who are willing to put their own welfare on the line to try to break this blockade. Everyone on these boats knows they face a possible, even significant, risk of intimidation and even attack by Israeli forces".
The activists, training in non-violent resistance techniques, are business people, academics, aid workers, journalists and doctors.
The eldest, Hedy Epstein, who could celebrate her 84th birthday at sea, is a Holocaust survivor. Her anti-Zionist German Jewish parents managed to send her on a Kindertransport to England. She learnt to swim to qualify for the trip. Anne Montgomery (81) is a Catholic nun and Christian peacemaker who has served in the West Bank and Iraq. Yvonne Ridley, a journalist, was kidnapped by the Taliban and held for 11 days.
If the ships reach Gaza, the plan is to return to Cyprus with Palestinian passengers and establish a ferry service, giving priority for people seeking medical treatment and students prevented by Israel from studying abroad.